Euthyphro (Part I)
Location: The King’s Porch, near Kerameikos, Athens. The place where a magistrate oversaw crimes and other matters relating to religious duties and legal affairs.
T.H.O.S
Euthyphro: What unusual events have led you to leave your discussions in the Lyceum and wait about the King’s Porch? For, surely you have not any action, as I have.
Socrates: Euthyphro, the Athenians do not call it action, but an accusation.
Euthyphro: Someone has accused yourself? For I do not think yourself would accuse another self.
Socrates: I should not, indeed.
Euthyphro: Who is he?
Socrates: I do not know him well, for he is young and not noteworthy. I think his name is Meletus, and he is from Pittheus. He has long hair, a thin beard and a hooked nose.
Euthyphro: I can’t recollect him, Socrates. What is his accusation?
Socrates: Not an ignoble one, as it appears to myself. For it is no contemptible thing for one who is a young man to be knowledgeable in affairs of such magnitude. For he knows, as he says, how the youth are being corrupted and who is corrupting them. Because he is a man of wise appearance, and seeing my ignorance, deemed myself to be the one who is corrupting his equals in age. He has accused myself before the city, as one might to a mother.
Of all the citizens, he seems to have made a commendable start. He is right to pay attention to youth in the first place so they may become most excellent, just as good husbandry should first take care of young crops, and, after this, the other ones.
Perhaps Meletus will first root out those of us who corrupt the blossoms of youth, as he says, and afterwards, he will certainly pay attention to those of a more advanced age, thus causing the most numerous and greatest of goods to the city. This is what one might expect from someone who begins in such a way.
Euthyphro: I wish it so, Socrates, yet I tremble lest the opposite may occur. For, in truth, he seems intent on harming yourself as a first step towards bringing harm to the very hearth of the city itself.
Tell me, how does he claim that you are corrupting the youth?
Socrates: His accusations, O wonderful man, must be considered absurd when they are heard. For he says, I am a maker of gods, introducing new ones and not believing in the ancient gods.
Euthyphro: I understand you, Socrates. It is because you say a spiritual [dæmonical] power is forever present with yourself. Therefore, the accusation is brought against yourself for introducing novelties into divine affairs, and he knows well that the many are always open to receiving such kind of character assassination.
Plato, The Euthyphro
The Many : Religious Duty and Laws :: Socrates : Sacred Athens
Young crops, blossoms of youth - the best positioned to grow, flourish and regenerate. Remember Love.
'He seems intent on harming yourself as a first step towards bringing harm to the sacred city itself.'!
Note from the editor of Classical Philosophy